this too a memory,

MACHI is the narrator of her namesake author, Machi Tawara's tanka collection, Salad Anniversary. The collection covers Machi's various, more or less successful relationships, her work as a teacher, her relation with her aging, provincial parents, and other day-to-day experiences like a trip to China and nightly jazz bar visits or weekend baseball matches. It also establishes Machi's thoughts and processes as a writer.

While called by the same name as the author, Machi Tawara herself has stated that Salad Anniversary is at least partly fictional and not as such based on her own life, despite the obvious similarities. This is the reason why I feel I can take Machi from the poems and treat her like a character on her own merit. Something others have done before, as the poetry collection has been turned into plays, TV series and other media in Japan.

I only play from within the framework of the poems themselves, making no assumptions of the author's private life or mixing up facts I know of her person.